SpaceX Dragon berths with International Space Station

World's first commercial spacecraft passes her tests and links to the ISS.

Flying high above the Pacific, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft scored one giant step for commercial space cargo at 12:02pm ET today as it berthed with the International Space Station (ISS). Over 1800 SpaceX employees will spend the day celebrating the end at the top of a very long climb—that is, before they get back to a very busy schedule.

Dragon made its flight tests look almost too easy, as the spacecraft, controlled from below by the SpaceX team in Hawthorne, California, zipped through its COTS Demo Flight 2 and 3 yesterday. Early today, astronauts aboard the ISS made contact with Dragon and turned on a strobe to begin the transition of control of the spacecraft from ground to orbit if necessary.

This morning at about 8:56am ET, Dragon shut down its thrusters and drifted to about 8 meters from the ISS. NASA astronaut Don Pettit extended the Canadarm2 robotic manipulator and captured Dragon by its grapple fixture. Slowly and carefully moving the spacecraft in, he took about two hours to hang it on the station's Earth-facing Harmony node. Harmony, otherwise known as Node 2, is the core of the ISS and hosts laboratories from both Europe and Japan. Australia passed underneath the two spacecraft as Pettit made the final attachment and allowed the arm to go limp.

The tests haven't quite ended. Dragon is pressurized, and must demonstrate its ability to hold pressure while attached to the Space Station. Only after those tests are complete will the Harmony hatch be opened, most likely early Saturday morning. Dragon will stay for about a week, long enough for astronauts to unload cargo, conduct a few more tests, and load Dragon up with material for the return flight. (Dragon is reusable and capable of returning cargo to the Earth.) Some of this cargo has been accumulating since the retirement of the Space Shuttle.

This flight is actually the second for the Dragon spacecraft. The COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) Demo Flight 1 took place in December 2010 and demonstrated Dragon's ability to make orbit using its Falcon 9 rocket, re-enter, and make a successful landing. Originally, COTS Demo Flight 2 was to conduct only a flyby of the ISS and do maneuvering tests before its return to Earth. SpaceX asked to combine COTS 2 with the complete berthing required in COTS 3. NASA agreed.

The very last portion of the mission will be to complete a successful landing. Should all go well, Dragon will now transition to Commercial Resupply Services, or CRS. This will be a big step for SpaceX as a business. COTS has no binding contracts, only rewards for milestones. CRS, in contrast, has legally binding contracts for delivery services, along with penalties if cargo is lost.

Dragon is now truly a commercial spacecraft, and SpaceX will officially begin cargo deliveries to the ISS later in the year.

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Fantastic! One of the most significant accomplishments for spaceflight since the Apollo program. Maybe, on a practical level, even more so.

SapceX has delivered a new rocket platform affordably (even R&D) and promises to deliver the cheapest non-subsidized kg to orbit cost ever.

Space has never been a profitable endeavor if you load all costs - such as what it actually cost to develop the technology. Rocket r&d has always been paid for by the tax payer. For the first time it's been paid for by a private company.

One cool fact is that the dragon module provided cold storage for the childrens science experiments. Soemthing the soyuz craft did not so it enabled a couple more to be brought up that originally werent going to .

About freaking time! The shuttle was touted as a "Space Truck", yeah one designed by the worst design team in history---Congress, paid for by the most fickle of customers, the US taxpayer.

With commercialization, performance to and in orbit will become the criteria of accomplishment. It also means that the Billionaire Asteroid Mining Team has a launch platform that will actually work. Other businesses now have a way of determining a realistic risk scenario for space ventures. It's not "experimental" its really a business model with delta-V.

I wish Mr Musk and the asteroid miners all profits in their business ventures. Assuming business starts picking up, it won't be such a big psychological and economic jump to Mars as it seems now.

The very last portion of the mission will be to complete a successful landing. Should all go well, Dragon will now transition to Commercial Resupply Services, or CRS. This will be a big step for SpaceX as a business. COTS has no binding contracts, only rewards for milestones. CRS, in contrast, has legally binding contracts for delivery services, along with penalties if cargo is lost.

Dragon is now, truly, a commercial spacecraft, and SpaceX will officially begin cargo deliveries to the ISS later in the year.

Oooh, contradicted yourself in the space of two paragraphs!

Quad4B wrote:

Space has never been a profitable endeavor if you load all costs - such as what it actually cost to develop the technology. Rocket r&d has always been paid for by the tax payer. For the first time it's been paid for by a private company.

It still hasn't proven to be a profitable endeavor. Half of their budget has come from the government thus far, mostly for simply being able to prove that they can launch a rocket.

The very last portion of the mission will be to complete a successful landing. Should all go well, Dragon will now transition to Commercial Resupply Services, or CRS. This will be a big step for SpaceX as a business. COTS has no binding contracts, only rewards for milestones. CRS, in contrast, has legally binding contracts for delivery services, along with penalties if cargo is lost.

Dragon is now, truly, a commercial spacecraft, and SpaceX will officially begin cargo deliveries to the ISS later in the year.

Oooh, contradicted yourself in the space of two paragraphs!

Quad4B wrote:

Space has never been a profitable endeavor if you load all costs - such as what it actually cost to develop the technology. Rocket r&d has always been paid for by the tax payer. For the first time it's been paid for by a private company.

It still hasn't proven to be a profitable endeavor. Half of their budget has come from the government thus far, mostly for simply being able to prove that they can launch a rocket.

One cool fact is that the dragon module provided cold storage for the childrens science experiments. Soemthing the soyuz craft did not so it enabled a couple more to be brought up that originally werent going to .

They had children in cold storage on the Dragon Spacecraft? How do I get my kids involved in this?

I rather liked it when Don Petit told mission control "The sim went really well, I think we are ready to do it for real now" after he had just captured the Dragon capsule, making reference to how smoothly and just like the sims it all went.

Congrats SpaceX, congrats the astronauts on orbit that did the capture, and all the hard working folk involved. In ten years they went from an idea for a tiny single engine rocket to docking a spacecraft to the ISS, and it didn't cost $100 billion dollars!

One cool fact is that the dragon module provided cold storage for the childrens science experiments. Soemthing the soyuz craft did not so it enabled a couple more to be brought up that originally werent going to .

They had children in cold storage on the Dragon Spacecraft? How do I get my kids involved in this?

This is just down right cool. Setting here reading and thinking that we are seeing the start of the next phase of space flight and all the possibilities that come with it. So when does the space hotel open? Cause I'll need a room to stay in for a couple of nights before catching my ride to the new lunar colony.

Once SpaceX gets some successful resupply flights under their belts, I'm sure we'll be seeing them and Bigelow ferrying humans into Orbit without any Nasa involvement at all. I find it really interesting that NASA's man-rating standards wouldn't have allowed the shuttle....

Congrats to SpaceX and NASA for a very successful launch and docking, makes me proud to see what people can do when they have a can-do attitude.

Worth noting that this was a test flight, and also worth noting that it while successful, it didn't proceed exactly as planned. I believe there were at least two or three unplanned holds. Also the Dragon LIDAR locked onto an incorrect reflector about 70m out, which may have been related to only running 1 of the 2 LIDAR units during the final capture (which would have lead to an automatic abort if that one LIDAR had failed).

I'm mentioning this not to be a wet blanket, but to drive home the point that this stuff is HARD, and the engineers/operators involved did a tremendous job overcoming both expected and unexpected obstacles

Worth noting that this was a test flight, and also worth noting that it while successful, it didn't proceed exactly as planned. I believe there were at least two or three unplanned holds. Also the Dragon LIDAR locked onto an incorrect reflector about 70m out, which may have been related to only running 1 of the 2 LIDAR units during the final capture (which would have lead to an automatic abort if that one LIDAR had failed).

I'm mentioning this not to be a wet blanket, but to drive home the point that this stuff is HARD, and the engineers/operators involved did a tremendous job overcoming both expected and unexpected obstacles

Proof that the American ingenuity and "can-do" spirit still has a pulse.

The very last portion of the mission will be to complete a successful landing. Should all go well, Dragon will now transition to Commercial Resupply Services, or CRS. This will be a big step for SpaceX as a business. COTS has no binding contracts, only rewards for milestones. CRS, in contrast, has legally binding contracts for delivery services, along with penalties if cargo is lost.

Dragon is now, truly, a commercial spacecraft, and SpaceX will officially begin cargo deliveries to the ISS later in the year.

Oooh, contradicted yourself in the space of two paragraphs!

Quad4B wrote:

Space has never been a profitable endeavor if you load all costs - such as what it actually cost to develop the technology. Rocket r&d has always been paid for by the tax payer. For the first time it's been paid for by a private company.

It still hasn't proven to be a profitable endeavor. Half of their budget has come from the government thus far, mostly for simply being able to prove that they can launch a rocket.

Couldn't watch it Live but saw highlights as of right now on the briefing. This is awesome and I'm damn proud. If I was a billionaire, I would contribute in all possible means. By the way, NASA briefing personals look pissed and tired, what's up with that?

Worth noting that this was a test flight, and also worth noting that it while successful, it didn't proceed exactly as planned. I believe there were at least two or three unplanned holds. Also the Dragon LIDAR locked onto an incorrect reflector about 70m out, which may have been related to only running 1 of the 2 LIDAR units during the final capture (which would have lead to an automatic abort if that one LIDAR had failed).

I'm mentioning this not to be a wet blanket, but to drive home the point that this stuff is HARD, and the engineers/operators involved did a tremendous job overcoming both expected and unexpected obstacles

That's what makes this all the more impressive. Given how many brand new systems were being tested out on this flight (solar arrays, trunk, GNC, LIDAR, and a boatload of others I can't name), given that this was only the third Falcon 9 launch, given that all the objectives were originally supposed to be spread out over two missions, and given that they were able to recover from all the problems they've encountered to far, this has been a fantastically successful flight. If everything goes well tomorrow and they successfully splash down and recover next week, it will be a phenomenally successful flight. Enough to make me think that they could really pull off their planned flight rate at the promised cost, along with all the other new tech they're exploring (Falcon Heavy, integrated LAS and soft landings, flyback stages, etc).

I only have the vaguest hint of an idea how difficult space flight is, but it's enough to appreciate just how much SpaceX accomplished in such a short time.